Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Organic vs. Conventional Milk

8 Written by Keith on June 25, 2009 – 2:34 pm

I buy organic milk.  Why do I buy organic milk?  I didn’t know before yesterday.  Not knowing why I did something that costs so much money was bothersome – so I researched.  I found out, not to my surprise, that there are fairly convincing people on both sides of this question.  There is more to the organic milk debate than simply the healthfulness of the milk.  We must also consider taste, sustainable farming, general nutrition, and the ethical treatment of cows.  Does organic milk beat conventional milk in these categories?  Not necessarily.  Will I still buy organic milk?  Yes, but not for the reasons I would have guessed, not the same brand of organic milk as before, and I will not summarily dismiss conventional milk.

Safety (rbST)

The reason most people give for drinking organic milk is that it contains no rbST or rbGH (Recombinant bovine growth hormone).  RbGH is a naturally occurring  hormone that is produced in the pituitary gland of milk producing cows.  The higher the production of this hormone the more milk the cow produces.  Farmers started treating low producing cows with rbST to boost milk yield.  Since rbGH is a growth hormone people have expressed concern that it could lead to growth abnormalities and cancers in humans.  Dale Bauman, a professor of animal science at Cornell University, said in an MSNBC interview that a person would need to drink 95 quarts of milk per day to equal the same amount of IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) that we produce daily in our bodies.  There are studies indicating vegans having lower levels of IGF (13 percent lower in one study) than non vegans.  The cause of this disparity is higher levels of IGF in people who eat refined carbohydrates, saturated fats, and people who live a generally unhealthy lifestyle – not the growth hormone in milk.  Bovine growth hormone never reaches our blood stream because it is a protein hormone and therefore has no impact on IGF levels in humans.  In other words, it is a non-factor.

Is Organic More Ethical?

I was surprised to find that the definition of organic when it comes to milk is vague.  One of the conditions for becoming an organic farm (but not the only requirement) is that cows be given feed that is not grown with pesticides.  Another is that cows have access to pasture.  Cows could conceivably be let out of their pens once a month to graze for a few minutes just to be put back into a pen and fed grain instead of grass.  In fact, the definition leaves so much leeway that some farms are almost indistinguishable from traditional farms.  Consumer Affairs has an article reporting that the requirements to be labeled organic are flexible enough that some companies are skirting the intent of the laws and engaging in unethical farming practices.  The New York Times has reported that the supply for organic milk is so great that some companies are cutting corners in order to meet demand.  Companies that follow the intent of the law are indeed more environmentally aware.  But, does that mean that organic milk is necessarily better for the environment? No, it does not.  Is buying organic better for smaller, family farms?  The National Dairy Council says that the majority of the 60,000 dairy farms in the US have less than 200 cows and are family farms (organic milk makes up 3% of the total market).  Buying conventional milk helps support family farms just the same as buying organic.

Which Farms Produce the Best Milk?

This is a subjective question and probably open to much debate.  The Cornucopia Institute has compiled a ranking of farms that meet their criteria for ethics, sustainability, taste, and who knows what other apparent methods.  In any case, this list, Organic Dairy Report/Ratings, is a good starting point in deciding which milks live up to true organic standards.  I was interested to find that Horizon organic milk got a “zero cow” rating.  Horizon is owned by Dean Foods and is one of the organic companies that is alleged to have violated the intent of organic farming.  We’ll see how that turns out.

A Word on General Nutrition

Cows’ natural diet is grass.  Therefore, it is no surprise that milk from cows that have been fed exclusively grass have up to 71 percent more omega 3 fatty acids than milk from non-grass fed cows (see OFD Article: Grassfed vs. Grainfed).  It seems so silly to have to explain that cows fed a natural diet would naturally produce higher quality milk.  All we have to do is look as far as a human mother who breast-feeds her baby.  How many times have we heard doctors say, “Don’t smoke. Don’t Drink. Don’t take certain medicines.”  Whatever a mother consumes will subsequently find it’s way into breast milk – then baby.  It’s the same with cows.  rbST is not a health concern for humans.  I nevertheless want my milk coming from cows that are fed grass.  It’s for the same reason I want my baby drinking breast milk from his/her healthy mother;  healthy mothers produce healthy kids as a general rule.  Milk from grass fed cows is higher in fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins (Eatwild: Super Healthy Milk).

Am I still going to buy organic milk?  I will buy organic milk.  I won’t buy certain organic milk just like I won’t buy certain conventional milks.  I have discovered that organic farming is not always what it is advertised to be.  I also learned that the fears people have about growth hormones are unfounded.    I will no longer buy organic milk with the assumption that by doing so I am helping family farms or that I am saving my kids from rbST.  I will, however, continue to buy organic milk with the hope that the company that I buy it from is feeding their cows grass and allowing them the space they need to be happy cows.  I will not, though, assume that all organic milk lives up to that standard or that all conventional milk does not.  I will continue to research.

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